Project CoCo

Connect & Collaborate – CoCo brings FHNW's distributed research expertise into one intelligent discovery platform, helping researchers, students and innovation managers turn broad interests into concrete collaboration opportunities.

Initial Situation

FHNW conducts research and innovation across nine schools and many specialised institutes. However, information about projects and expertise is scattered across disconnected systems. This makes it difficult for researchers to find colleagues working on similar topics, for students to identify experts for their projects, and for staff to spot opportunities to collaborate across schools. Consequently, potential partnerships go unnoticed because information is siloed – and it becomes harder to show FHNW's research strengths to external partners.

Project Goal

The goal of CoCo is to transform fragmented research information into an accessible discovery experience. The platform provides a central, multilingual overview of FHNW research-related people, projects and publications – and helps users move from a broad research interest to a concrete shortlist of collaboration candidates with far less manual effort than searching across isolated systems.

Developed Solution and its benefit

CoCo was developed as a web-based discovery platform that brings available FHNW research information into one accessible interface. Instead of requiring users to search across isolated systems, the platform allows them to explore researchers, projects and publications from a central entry point. With search, AI-assisted matching, structured result views and a project basket, CoCo helps users move from a broad research interest to a concrete shortlist of potential collaboration partners.

The key benefits of our solution:

• Central research discovery – Search topics, competencies and research interests across all FHNW research data in one place.
• Unified expertise visibility – Find and compare researchers, projects and publications from a single platform.
• AI-assisted topic exploration – Narrow down broad or interdisciplinary topics using semantic matching across all FHNW schools.
• Structured collaboration preparation – Collect relevant people and research items in a project basket for further discussion.
• Validated product direction – Usability testing pinpointed where the platform needs clearer result types, better feedback and more reliable data.

The result is a functional prototype that demonstrates how FHNW research can be made more visible and easier to connect. It provides a strong foundation for future development, especially regarding richer data sources, improved profile information and more transparent matching logic.

Testimonial
« Great research is happening across FHNW every day. CoCo makes sure it doesn't go unnoticed. »
Désirée Harmuth, Innovation Manager «New Work», FHNW

Key terms

• UI/UX ToolFigma
• Programming languagesTypeScript, Python
• Frontend StackReact.js, Vite
• Backend StackDjango, Jina AI, Mistral API
• DatabasePostgreSQL with pgvector
• Data IntegrationFHNW IRF

Customer

FHNW – University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Northwestern Switzerland
Désirée Harmuth, Co-Innovation Manager «New Work»
Zukunftsfeld New Work
Campus Brugg-Windisch
Bahnhofstrasse 6, 5210 Windisch
FHNW Webpage

Team